Target 17.17: Public, public-private, and civil society partnerships
Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Public-private and civil society partnerships depend on companies choosing to engage. The UN Global Compact's more than 20,000 corporate participants commit to principles on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Shareholder campaigns show civil society and investors jointly changing corporate practice, as with Proxy Impact's child safety resolutions at Meta, four of which won a majority of the non-management-controlled vote. When owners vote alongside a trusted civil society organization, the vote is itself a form of the civil society partnership this target promotes, and corporate willingness to partner is a necessary input. The target is nonetheless addressed to governments encouraging and resourcing partnerships, which owners cannot do, and lobbying is immaterial. Owners supply a necessary input, and governments must act to encourage and resource the partnerships.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Files annual child safety shareholder proposals at Meta on behalf of Lisette Cooper, with faith-based and institutional co-filers, asking for child safety risk reporting and metrics and, in 2026, a link between executive pay and child safety.
Publicized the 2024 Meta child safety proposal led by Lisette Cooper of Fiduciary Trust International ahead of the May 29, 2024 vote.
3 campaigns on record
Adopt targets and report annually with quantitative metrics on child safety improvements and harm reduction.
Result: 18.5 percent overall; 59.1 percent of non-management-controlled shares
Report on child safety impacts and performance improvements.
Result: 16.27 percent overall; 53.8 percent of non-management-controlled shares
Report on the risk of increased sexual exploitation of children as the company develops and offers additional privacy tools such as end-to-end encryption.
Result: 17.3 percent overall; 56.7 percent of non-management-controlled shares
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.